***OFFICIAL KAWHI RELATED NEWS Thread***

[dbreiden83080]

Outside of his continuing to be rewarded free throws for extending his arm to push off and lowering his shoulder to power through, S bag's offensive efficiently has quietly been regressing to the mean for a while . . .

First 9 games of playoffs: 62.4 2pt%, 50 3pt%, 66.2 efg%
Last 11 games of playoffs: 48.2 2pt% 28.1 3pt%, 46.6 efg%

Spare me the "he's injured" excuse because if, as has been speculated, it's degenerative (funny how Duncan was never afforded the same courtesy his last 7 seasons), then this is how he'll be going forward the rare times he's willing to physically push himself.



Yeah, especially for a player who, at least without Durant, often needs to be in perpetual motion to create the requisite split second of daylight to generate open looks. They can't afford for him to be incapable of doing so or lacking elevation.

He also can't hide defensively because they need to prioritize Curry doing so on Green.

That’s why even going back to Golden State tied the series is wide open. They have so many injuries, and even if Kevin is back by game 4 he’s not going to be 100%. He’s likely to be very rusty.

[Wu36]

Not the correct thread but, hope the medical staff knew he was damaged goods. Took a shot a derozen and now moves on in a different direction.

[DJR210]

@ this dumbass suing Nike trying to say he created the KL hand logo.. Yeah, he drew that in college, he just never debuted it until Jordan signed him.. righhhhhhht

[Reck]

@ this dumbass suing Nike trying to say he created the KL hand logo.. Yeah, he drew that in college, he just never debuted it until Jordan signed him.. righhhhhhht

Oh so that's why he's been kissing Jordan's ass on his pressers lately. I listen and take cues from Jordan.

[apalisoc_9]

Smart move to sue nike in the finals.

If Raps wins, it would put way too much pressure on Nike since the media is basically on Kawhi side vs Corporate.

If the raps lose. No one cares and Kawhi easily loses the lawsuit.

[FkLA]

Smart move to sue nike in the finals.

If Raps wins, it would put way too much pressure on Nike since the media is basically on Kawhi side vs Corporate.

If the raps lose. No one cares and Kawhi easily loses the lawsuit.

Your Raptors aren't winning it, bro. It's over.

[DPG21920]

Your Raptors aren't winning it, bro. It's over.

Raps have a great shot; I dont know what series you’ve been watching.

[Mikeanaro]

Raps have a great shot; I dont know what series you’ve been watching.

They have a shot, sure.
But not great, they choked the most important game without Klem in the 4th and Pizzaface.

[DPG21920]

They have a shot, sure.
But not great, they choked the most important game without Klem in the 4th and Pizzaface.

Klay played amazing and they won’t have to worry about for an entire game maybe; forget one quarter.

[FkLA]

Raps have a great shot; I dont know what series you’ve been watching.

Bet?

Oracle is a different beast. TOR has no shot unless both Klay and Durbeta are out for the series.

[Mikeanaro]

Klay played amazing and they won’t have to worry about for an entire game maybe; forget one quarter.

Yet they have Curry who had great games without Pizzaman, and a broken Iguodala who delivered when it mattered and Raymond hustling.
As I said before, they had a chance, but is not so big.
Cook has no fear and Cousins played decent for the little time he has with them.
Raps choked an open window with refs helping along the way.

[99 Problems]

Critical games as always coming up. Sounds weird but Raps could strike twice throwing the basketball world into fits tbh...

[Fusternino]

Cousins has actually been competent.

And yes US copyright extends to Canada . . . that is the whole point of trade deals.

[Jonnyblue19]

Bet?

Oracle is a different beast. TOR has no shot unless both Klay and Durbeta are out for the series.

Also Cousins seems to slowly be improving each game and role players play better at home. And Curry wasn't even playing well the last game either. It can get ugly for Toronto really quickly in Oakland.

[hombre]

Smart move to sue nike in the finals.

If Raps wins, it would put way too much pressure on Nike since the media is basically on Kawhi side vs Corporate.

If the raps lose. No one cares and Kawhi easily loses the lawsuit.

Yeah, the courts will rule based on the outcome of the finals. LOL.

Nike made $34.3 billion last year, while the entire NBA league made $7.4 billion, I'm not so sure Nike is be feeling much of anything if the Raptors won.

What a stupid way to spend your nephew's money.

[absoloot66]

This dummy traced his hand and called it a logo.

[exstatic]

But I’d assume Kawhi could sell his own shirts or merchandise in Canada with his logo. New balance can’t. I don’t think IP is protected in other countries. I might be wrong but didn’t China get to keep making fake Jordan’s?

Don't use China as an example. They're intellectual thieves. It's funny that all of the companies that off-shored production there to save money are now losing money to cheap Chinese knockoff merchandise.

[duncan2k5]

so does duncan2k5 still wear Nike?

I don't spend my money on expensive shoes like an idiot

[JeffDuncan]

So who has the case here? Tbh

Leonard is black. He's local to southern California. He has demanded a jury trial. His father was murdered, in that general area. By the sweat of his brow, Leonard, a black man, became a great success.

Nike is almost all white at the top. It is a rich company, and the executives and directors are all rich. They are outsiders, to that area. They became rich white men while sitting in padded chairs in air conditioned offices. Were any of their fathers murdered at car washes? Har har.

It's going to turn political. It already is. We live in a highly charged political atmosphere. And it's southern Cali, where the media fruitbats circle endlessly. Not southern Texas.

Who will the jury be? Leonard's lawyers will do everything they can to make the jury mostly black. Those who aren't black, they will try to make sure are low income. The Nike lawyers may not be able to do much about that, because of the jury pool.

You can see a mile away where this is headed. It's a perfect setup for Nike to get massacred. Race. Income. The accusation that some rich whites dudes stole from a black man. The whole damn mess.

If they go to trial, Leonard will walk into court with the sympathy of the jury, and he will never lose it. Not there. Not under those cir stances. Not among those people.

Truth? Justice? Facts? It's going to go political. There won't be anything Nike can do about that, or the judge can do about that, although I'm sure he will say the right words.

In this political atmosphere we live in, in front of that jury, do you want to go into court as the "rich white oppressors" from the multi-billion dollar company, up against the local black man who sweats for his living, and try to prove with legal facts that no, you evil white men did not steal the valuable property that he says he created with his own two callused black hands? Which way do you think that jury is going to decide? Especially when the jury knows full well that to you, the rich, white multi-billion dollar company, that logo represents hardly more than petty cash, and you can do perfectly fine without it.

In the current political atmosphere, under those cir stances, in that location, I think it's already decided. Or am I too cynical?

It won't go to trial. Nike will settle. They will give what the lawsuit demands. Without admitting wrongdoing, they will give Leonard the copyright to that logo. Then they will move on.

That's my prediction. For what it's worth. I'm such a cynic.

The actual legal case? Does it matter?

Well, if it did....

Nike's case will hinge on the testimony of one key person. It isn't Leonard.

Somebody at Nike will have done the very first work for Nike on that logo. Leonard's lawyers will find out who that person is, and will put him, or her, on the witness stand, under oath. They will ask questions.

"Now, Mr. Joedoe, you say you were the first graphic designer at Nike who worked on this KL2 logo?"

"Yes."

"Where did you get the idea, the basic concept, on which you based your work? I mean, what got you started on it?"

"I got started on it, based on a drawing we received from Kawhi Leonard."

If Joedoe gives that answer, in court under oath, Nike's case falls stone cold dead. The trial will be effectively over. Leonard wins.

Compare.... you write a story, a novel. You think it's a good story, that might even be worth publishing. But man, you can't write worth a damn.

You do submit the manuscript to a publisher, tho. He takes a look at it, and he likes the story. But he sees your writing is hopeless. He gives it to an editor to work on. The editor fixes the spelling and grammar, and the paragraphs, and the chapter divisions, and tidies up the mess. He maybe even does a little rewrite of some dialogue that's especially awful. He notices a serious problem, like, you've got a character in two different places at the same time. He calls you for what you want to do about that, and he fixes it. The editor spends more time on it than you did, and almost tears his hair out over it. Eventually, he gets it into shape where it could actually be published. He gives it back to the publisher, who takes a look at it, and still likes it. He decides to publish it.

Who's the author? It was the editor who did the work it took to turn the story into a book. Does that make him the author? Nope. The author is still the "story person," which is you. It's your name that goes on the cover of the book.

A story can be viewed as certain characters, placed in a certain arrangement.

For the KL2 logo, who is the "story person?" Who was it who placed those characters in that arrangement?

The KL2 "story" has the "characters" of the big letters K and L and the 2, and the arrangement is the hand or fingers idea. Who wrote that "story?" So to speak.

If all Nike can show is that they were the "editors" - no matter how much work that took - they will lose.

But if Nike can show they came up with some essential elements, at least, like it was their own idea to arrange the thumb and a finger in a letter L, they'll have an authorship claim and a chance to win. Legally. But still, the politics of it, ugh.

Joint authorship is possible. But if that happens, Nike loses, especially from not telling the copyright office there was a joint author, who should share in the copyright.

So, again, it goes to what that Nike artist would say on the witness stand, about where the basic "story" came from. Was it his? Or suggested by someone else at Nike? Or did it come from Leonard?

It would be a dramatic moment in the trial. What will he say? Must-see tv.

We'll never see it. This won't go to trial. I don't think so, anyway. Hope I'm wrong.

P.S. Nike knows, now, what their artist can truthfully say. Or they certainly ought to know, already.

[BillMc]

According Bucher, Spurs tried to get KL to take a team discount (as TD and others had, presumably to give them cap flexibility) and Kawhi and/or his group were HIGHLY offended. And that was a lot of it. Obviously later (according to Windhorst) they came with the full SuperMax, but that was after the trade demand.

[RD2191]

Leonard is black. He's local to southern California. He has demanded a jury trial. His father was murdered, in that general area. By the sweat of his brow, Leonard, a black man, became a great success.

Nike is almost all white at the top. It is a rich company, and the executives and directors are all rich. They are outsiders, to that area. They became rich white men while sitting in padded chairs in air conditioned offices. Were any of their fathers murdered at car washes? Har har.

It's going to turn political. It already is. We live in a highly charged political atmosphere. And it's southern Cali, where the media fruitbats circle endlessly. Not southern Texas.

Who will the jury be? Leonard's lawyers will do everything they can to make the jury mostly black. Those who aren't black, they will try to make sure are low income. The Nike lawyers may not be able to do much about that, because of the jury pool.

You can see a mile away where this is headed. It's a perfect setup for Nike to get massacred. Race. Income. The accusation that some rich whites dudes stole from a black man. The whole damn mess.

If they go to trial, Leonard will walk into court with the sympathy of the jury, and he will never lose it. Not there. Not under those cir stances. Not among those people.

Truth? Justice? Facts? It's going to go political. There won't be anything Nike can do about that, or the judge can do about that, although I'm sure he will say the right words.

In this political atmosphere we live in, in front of that jury, do you want to go into court as the "rich white oppressors" from the multi-billion dollar company, up against the local black man who sweats for his living, and try to prove with legal facts that no, you evil white men did not steal the valuable property that he says he created with his own two callused black hands? Which way do you think that jury is going to decide? Especially when the jury knows full well that to you, the rich, white multi-billion dollar company, that logo represents hardly more than petty cash, and you can do perfectly fine without it.

In the current political atmosphere, under those cir stances, in that location, I think it's already decided. Or am I too cynical?

It won't go to trial. Nike will settle. They will give what the lawsuit demands. Without admitting wrongdoing, they will give Leonard the copyright to that logo. Then they will move on.

That's my prediction. For what it's worth. I'm such a cynic.

The actual legal case? Does it matter?

Well, if it did....

Nike's case will hinge on the testimony of one key person. It isn't Leonard.

Somebody at Nike will have done the very first work for Nike on that logo. Leonard's lawyers will find out who that person is, and will put him, or her, on the witness stand, under oath. They will ask questions.

"Now, Mr. Joedoe, you say you were the first graphic designer at Nike who worked on this KL2 logo?"

"Yes."

"Where did you get the idea, the basic concept, on which you based your work? I mean, what got you started on it?"

"I got started on it, based on a drawing we received from Kawhi Leonard."

If Joedoe gives that answer, in court under oath, Nike's case falls stone cold dead. The trial will be effectively over. Leonard wins.

Compare.... you write a story, a novel. You think it's a good story, that might even be worth publishing. But man, you can't write worth a damn.

You do submit the manuscript to a publisher, tho. He takes a look at it, and he likes the story. But he sees your writing is hopeless. He gives it to an editor to work on. The editor fixes the spelling and grammar, and the paragraphs, and the chapter divisions, and tidies up the mess. He maybe even does a little rewrite of some dialogue that's especially awful. He notices a serious problem, like, you've got a character in two different places at the same time. He calls you for what you want to do about that, and he fixes it. The editor spends more time on it than you did, and almost tears his hair out over it. Eventually, he gets it into shape where it could actually be published. He gives it back to the publisher, who takes a look at it, and still likes it. He decides to publish it.

Who's the author? It was the editor who did the work it took to turn the story into a book. Does that make him the author? Nope. The author is still the "story person," which is you. It's your name that goes on the cover of the book.

A story can be viewed as certain characters, placed in a certain arrangement.

For the KL2 logo, who is the "story person?" Who was it who placed those characters in that arrangement?

The KL2 "story" has the "characters" of the big letters K and L and the 2, and the arrangement is the hand or fingers idea. Who wrote that "story?" So to speak.

If all Nike can show is that they were the "editors" - no matter how much work that took - they will lose.

But if Nike can show they came up with some essential elements, at least, like it was their own idea to arrange the thumb and a finger in a letter L, they'll have an authorship claim and a chance to win. Legally. But still, the politics of it, ugh.

Joint authorship is possible. But if that happens, Nike loses, especially from not telling the copyright office there was a joint author, who should share in the copyright.

So, again, it goes to what that Nike artist would say on the witness stand, about where the basic "story" came from. Was it his? Or suggested by someone else at Nike? Or did it come from Leonard?

It would be a dramatic moment in the trial. What will he say? Must-see tv.

We'll never see it. This won't go to trial. I don't think so, anyway. Hope I'm wrong.

P.S. Nike knows, now, what their artist can truthfully say. Or they certainly ought to know, already.

thanks for the honest opinion. Hopefully things don't get too ugly.

[K...]

According Bucher, Spurs tried to get KL to take a team discount (as TD and others had, presumably to give them cap flexibility) and Kawhi and/or his group were HIGHLY offended. And that was a lot of it. Obviously later (according to Windhorst) they came with the full SuperMax, but that was after the trade demand.

Call it what you want, but everyone and their mother knew the Spur would explore a pay cut and might trade kawhi rather than pay the dpe max. Leonard could have simply said "Boardman gets paid" and the Spurs would've relented. But it's a tantrum instead and history is past us now

[Harry Callahan]

You would think #2 would want 4 years or 5 years of guaranteed money to be beyond independently wealthy. Can you really trust this guy to fulfill the contract he signs? He really only provided his services for 2 years on a four year deal before reneging on his contractual committment.

The Spurs could have signed him to the 5 year Supermax and he could still have been a problem - he pissed on a good situation in San Antonio that provided him plenty of winning, money, and stats. I would wonder how committed he would be in SA long term every single day given his current MO.

Since he is now actually talking a little bit (because the NBA has forced him to at the Finals) he did not seem thrilled with his personal situation (in a box, lack of shots, etc.). Would this guy be a malcontent regardless of the money, minutes, or shots? You can't read a sphinx very easily.

[BackHome]

My only reasoning for not giving him Max at start was because of injury him not able to play back to backs after sitting out one year makes me believe we made right choice.

[slick'81]

My only reasoning for not giving him Max at start was because of injury him not able to play back to backs after sitting out one year makes me believe we made right choice.

Nope spurs asked him to take less to sign/trade another allstar and he was offended af